The Iranian regime has managed to smuggle at least $1 billion to its terrorist proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon despite heavy sanctions this year, top officials at the U.S. Treasury Department say.

John Hurley, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, says Iran remains committed to its proxy groups throughout the Middle East. Nevertheless, he says there is any opportunity to cut off the funding streams while Iran is in its current weakened state.

‘There’s a moment in Lebanon now. If we could get Hezbollah to disarm, the Lebanese people could get their country back,’ Hurley said.

‘Even with everything Iran has been through, even with the economy not in great shape, they’re still pumping a lot of money to their terrorist proxies,’ he continued.

‘The key to that is to drive out the Iranian influence and control that starts with all the money that they are pumping into Hezbollah,’ he argued.

Hurley pushed for the increased pressure campaign during a tour of Turkey, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Israel this weekend.

Western nations have already laid down heavy sanctions on Tehran over its unwillingness to negotiate a nuclear deal. The regime insists its nuclear development program exists solely for civilian purposes.

President Donald Trump ordered bombings on Iran’s key nuclear cites earlier this year in Operation Midnight Hammer, which U.S. officials say succeeded in crippling Tehran’s progress toward a bomb.

Iran has nevertheless continued its efforts to spread chaos across the globe. U.S. officials say they, along with Israel and Mexico, thwarted an Iran-backed attempt to assassinate Israel’s ambassador to Mexico earlier this year.

‘We thank the security and law enforcement services in Mexico for thwarting a terrorist network directed by Iran that sought to attack Israel’s ambassador in Mexico,’ Israel’s foreign ministry told Fox News on Friday.

‘The Israeli security and intelligence community will continue to work tirelessly, in full cooperation with security and intelligence agencies around the world, to thwart terrorist threats from Iran and its proxies against Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide.’

A U.S. official told Reuters the plot targeting ambassador Einat Kranz Neiger ‘was contained and does not pose a current threat.’

Fox News’ Greg Norman and Reuters contributed to this report.

Republican Rep. Riley Moore said the United States could take a range of actions — including sanctions and ‘even kinetic military action’ — in response to what he called the ‘genocide’ of Christians in Nigeria.

Trump designated Moore, a member of the Appropriations Committee from West Virginia, along with Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., to lead an investigation into the killing of Christians by Islamist militants in the African nation.

Frustrations with the matter boiled out into the open when Trump this week designated Nigeria as a country of particular concern and ordered the Pentagon to prepare to intervene militarily.

In a video on Truth Social this week, Trump threatened to ‘do things to Nigeria that Nigeria is not going to be happy about’ and ‘go into that now-disgraced country guns-a-blazing.’

Moore told Fox News Digital the designation unlocks ’15 different levers’ the administration can use against Nigeria, including halting arms sales, freezing aid and sanctioning officials or institutions accused of ignoring or enabling religious killings.

‘All options are on the table here for this, even kinetic military action,’ Moore said. ‘That could mean targeted, strategic counterterrorism strikes to get rid of some of the top leadership if that’s what it takes to stop the killing.’

‘We’ve been providing security assistance to this country since at least 2009 – billions of dollars worth of arm sales, training and equipment that they’ve received. And it’s a question of prioritization in what’s important to them. And clearly this has not been one of the most important things.’

The West Virginia Republican said he has been working with the House Appropriations Committee and the State Department to identify what he called ‘legislative levers’ that could support the administration’s response. Moore said he’s also consulting with NGOs and Christian organizations ‘on the ground’ in Nigeria to document the scale of the violence.

He described the attacks as a ‘genocide,’ claiming Christians are being killed at a rate of five to one compared with non-Christians. Moore accused Nigeria’s government of ‘looking the other way’ despite receiving billions in U.S. security aid since 2009.

‘They’re not taking this seriously,’ he said. ‘We had a pastor warn the government about an impending attack — they called it fake news. Within 24 hours, that pastor and 20 of his congregants were murdered.’

The Nigerian government denies a genocide is taking place. ‘Portraying Nigeria’s security challenges as a targeted campaign against a single religious group is a gross misrepresentation of reality. Terrorists attack all who reject their murderous ideology — Muslims, Christians, and those of no faith alike,’ the office of the presidency wrote on X. 

Moore said he and House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., plan to meet with Nigerian officials in Washington this month as part of the investigation, and may even send delegations to the nation. He added that the U.S. could still work with Nigeria’s government if it shows a willingness to confront extremist groups.

‘It’s not all sticks here — there are some carrots in this,’ Moore said. ‘If they’re willing to work with us, this could actually lead to a stronger relationship between our countries.’

The Nigerian government has denied that the killings amount to religious persecution, arguing that extremist and criminal groups target civilians of all faiths.

With a population of more than 230 million, Nigeria’s vibrant and often turbulent cities and villages are home to people of strikingly diverse backgrounds. The country’s more than 500 languages and mix of Islam, Christianity, and traditional indigenous faiths have long been marred by tension.

Nigeria’s faith communities remain sharply divided, with Muslims dominating the northern regions and Christians concentrated in the south.

Christianity took firm root in the 19th century, when freed slaves educated in Sierra Leone returned home as teachers and missionaries — establishing schools, churches, and early congregations that continue to shape southern Nigeria’s identity today.

Despite vast oil and mineral wealth, decades of corruption and mismanagement have left much of the nation impoverished.

Nigeria’s growing cache of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and other rare minerals has drawn quiet U.S. attention as Washington looks to counter China’s dominance in Africa’s critical-minerals market. The Commerce Department and U.S. International Development Finance Corp. have eyed investment opportunities in Nigeria’s nascent lithium industry, but persistent insecurity in mining regions threatens Western access and future development.

For over a decade, Nigeria’s Christians fleeing the nation’s northern half have been subject to the violence of Boko Haram, an Islamist militant group known for its terrorist spectacles. Churches and homes burned, communities vanishing in the group’s night raids.

Numbers are difficult to verify, but the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law reports at least 52,000 Christians have been killed, some 18,500 abducted and unlikely to have survived, and 20,000 churches and Christian schools attacked between 2009 and 2023.

In 2014, Boko Haram famously kidnapped and enslaved 276 teenage girls in a raid on a high school dormitory. The group regularly arms children as suicide bombers and holds slave markets in captured territories.

But a direct U.S. military campaign would prove difficult with current U.S. assets in the nation and is unlikely, one defense official told Fox News Digital.

The United States currently has no permanent military base in Nigeria, though small teams of U.S. advisors and special operations trainers work periodically with Nigerian forces under AFRICOM programs.

Washington approved about $600 million in security aid to Nigeria over the past decade, mostly focused on counterterrorism in the northeast.

Nov. 8, 2025, marks the 50th anniversary of Chevy Chase’s comedic portrayal of U.S. President Gerald Ford as a bumbling klutz on ‘Saturday Night Live.’

Nowadays, we expect ‘SNL’ to mock the president. (There’s even speculation going into each administration about who will play the president.) 

But when Chase did it for the first time, it was groundbreaking. In fact, in the years before ‘SNL,’ mocking the president on what was still the relatively new mass medium of television often had to overcome resistance from network censors and presidential pressure.

In the early 1960s, NBC executives would not allow a comedy sketch about President John F. Kennedy to appear on its ‘Art Carney Show.’ As a network spokesperson explained, ‘We thought it would have been improper to have performers actually portraying the president and his wife,’ adding the ‘decision was based on a matter of good taste.’

The networks were similarly reluctant to mock Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson. In 1964, NBC imported the British parody show ‘That Was the Week That Was,’ which was specifically developed in England to ‘prick the pomposity of public figures.’ 

Although the show did get in an occasional poke at Johnson, NBC censors constantly battled the show’s producers over LBJ jokes. NBC also took the step of suspending all political humor on the show around the 1964 presidential election.

Another show that tried to make fun of the president was ‘The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.’ The show, which premiered on CBS in 1967, even got pushback from Johnson himself. One skit that mocked Johnson prompted Johnson to tell CBS Chairman William Paley in a late-night call, ‘get those b——- off my back.’ Paley asked the show to go easier on the president.

When Richard Nixon was elected in 1968, the brothers pledged to ‘lay off the jokes’ about the incoming president for a time. But that pledge did not stop them from having the comedian David Frye impersonate Nixon on the show. 

Still, the show was canceled in April 1969, over a host of controversies, including sex and religion jokes, as well as political ones.

On the final episode, the brothers read a letter from former President Johnson, claiming that he had been OK with being mocked.

‘It is part of the price of leadership to be the target of clever satirists. You have given the gift of laughter to us. May we never grow so somber or self-important that we fail to appreciate humor.’ 

Although the words were admirable, it was a little hard to take Johnson seriously given his earlier intervention with Paley.

As for Frye, with the show canceled, he continued to impersonate Nixon on comedy albums. But even here, the networks continued to obstruct. In 1973, the three major networks refused to accept advertising in New York for Frye’s Watergate-related album. According to a WABC-TV spokesman, ‘It’s such a serious matter we’ve decided not to accept advertising for any comedy material relating to Watergate.’

With this backdrop in mind, ‘SNL’ must have known that it was taking a risk when it had Chase send up the president on live TV. Chase’s portrayal went beyond light jokes at the president’s expense. Chase was pratfalling around the Oval Office, holding up a glass rather than a phone to his ear and pouring water from a pitcher onto the papers on his desk. Yet the show not only survived, it thrived.

That first ‘SNL’ presidential skit was a watershed moment that helped fundamentally change the relationship between the American people and the president. The 1960s and 1970s had brought the U.S. presidency down in the eyes of the American people. The Kennedy assassination shocked Americans who did not realize the president was so vulnerable. 

The Johnson years punctured the bubble of presidential honesty about foreign affairs. Nixon’s Watergate scandal punctured a similar bubble about domestic affairs. And then the unelected Ford came to power and almost immediately pardoned Nixon for Watergate. The decision is lauded in retrospect but was controversial at the time.

Chase’s opening the show as Ford on that day in 1975 brought mocking presidents out from the narrowcast world of Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl comedy routines and more regularly into the mass media. That first ‘SNL’ sketch ushered in a period in which presidents became both closer to and further from the American people. 

Mockery can keep physically- removed politicians less distant from everyday citizens. As a result, presidents are now nearly ubiquitous in a world of TV and social media, with constant mockery taking them down a peg — or more. In this world, even a short presidential disappearance of a day or two can lead to unfounded rumors of a presidential demise.

At the same time, presidents are further from the American people in that the security bubble around them is so much tighter. The White House resembles an armed camp. Presidential motorcades are unapproachable, and presidents are hard-pressed to continue to communicate regularly with friends. George W. Bush gave up e-mail. Obama resisted pressure to give up his BlackBerry.

In our current Chevy Chase-enabled world, presidential mockery is a constant. While Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel learned that presidents and network suits can still target an individual comic or show, those are unfortunate exceptions rather than the rule, and even Kimmel’s exile lasted barely a week. 

The continuing mockery of the president on Kimmel, as well as South Park, Jon Stewart, social media and a host of other places, shows that the genie of mass market, largely uncensored, mockery of presidents unleashed by Chevy Chase on ‘SNL’ a half century ago is not going back in the bottle, and for that we should be grateful.

The Senate could take a test vote as early as tomorrow afternoon on a revamped Republican bill to end the government shutdown and fund parts of the government for the rest of the fiscal year. 

We are still waiting on bill text on a measure which would fund the government through late January and provide money for the Agriculture Department (which funds SNAP), the Veterans Affairs Department and military construction projects and Congress through Sept. 30, 2026. 

But things will begin moving once text is posted tonight or tomorrow morning. 

This appears to be a pure spending bill with nothing separate for renewing Obamacare subsidies. 

The test vote needs 60 yeas. That entails Democratic buy-in. Fox is told to watch the following Democratic senators to see if they will vote to break a filibuster — although they might not be needed to vote for the final bill. Only a simple majority is needed there. 

Fox is told here is the universe of potential senators who caucus with the Democrats to watch as possible yeas to break a filibuster:

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Jack Reed, D-R.I., Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., John Fetterman, D-Pa., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., Gary Peters, D-Mo., Angus King, I-Maine, and Patty Murray, D-Wash. Murray is the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Fox is told that Murray scored some significant language in the tenuous spending pact. 

This is a fragile coalition and could fall apart. 

But if the Senate breaks the filibuster, it is just a matter of time before the senators vote to re-open the government. In fact, it’s possible that the Senate could vote Sunday night if senators can forge a time agreement. 

By the book, the Senate is afforded significant debate time once it breaks a filibuster. Fox is told that progressives, steamed that they scored nothing on health care — and were burned by their own party — could try to stretch things out as much as possible. That could mean the Senate doesn’t vote until Tuesday or beyond on final passage. 

But by the same token, Democrats are only preventing SNAP benefits from going out. So they could agree to an expedited process. 

The House is on 48 hours notice to come back. So the House may not return until midweek to align with the Senate and re-open the government. But it’s likely the House could be recalled as soon as possible. 

The House’s disposition is unclear on this legislation. However, it’s hard to believe that most Republicans wouldn’t take this deal. In additon, Reps. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., and Jared Golden, D-Maine, are among moderate Democrats who may be in play to vote yes if the GOP loses a few votes. Golden was the lone House Democrat who voted for the old interim spending bill on Sept. 19. Golden has since announced his retirement.

Here’s another question:

Would the House swear-in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., before or after the vote? Democrats will bray if Johnson fails to swear-in Grijalva before a possible House vote.

And, as we say, it’s always about the math. 

Swearing-in Grijalva puts the House at 433 members with two vacancies. The breakdown is 219 Republicans to 214 Democrats. That means the GOP can only lose two votes before needing help from the Democrats.
 

In addition, brace for the internecine Democratic warfare which will start once Democrats break with their party. Big divisions will emerge between those Democrats who vote to break the filibuster and those holding out for Obamacare subsidies. 

Moreover, consider the emerging chasm between House and Senate Democrats once this is over. 

And, here’s the kicker: It’s entirely possible that a group of Senate Democrats threw their colleagues under the bus to end the shutdown — and the party scored no guarantees on health care money despite their risky political shutdown gambit. 

A reckoning is coming.

Or shall we say, ‘reckonings.’

And they’re coming, whether the government re-opens soon or remains shuttered.

If the government stays closed, voters will likely torch both parties for not hammering out a deal. Air traffic delays are stacking up. Those problems only intensify as we near Thanksgiving and Christmas. That’s to say nothing of multiple missed paychecks for federal employees, stress, economic consequences and no SNAP benefits for the needy.

Some of those concerns will dissipate if lawmakers address the shutdown quickly. But there will be a reckoning if the shutdown drags deeper into November.

There are likely specific reckonings for both political parties.

For Republicans, it’s a resistance by GOP leaders to address spiking health care subsidies. Yes. The GOP is making a compelling argument that health care subsidies are only necessary because Obamacare is a problem and health care prices skyrocketed. So Republicans are back fighting against Obamacare.

In fact, the entire government shutdown is not about spending levels and appropriations. It’s a re-litigation of the touchstone law passed under President Obama in 2010. And Republicans — despite multiple campaign promises and dozens of efforts to kill the law over a six-year period, failed at nearly every turn.

Despite issues with Obamacare, Democrats annexed the public’s concern about health care costs and linked that to government funding. Democrats appear like the party trying to address the issue as premiums spike. And Republicans, despite promises that they’ll get to it, are inert on the subject. They’re even championing efforts to lambaste Obamacare — much the same as they did in 2010 when Congress passed the law.

Republicans are latched on to the concept that the subsidies are ‘pumping money to insurance companies,’ as Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., put it on Fox. Lankford also characterized those who benefitted from Obamacare as a ‘select group.’ It works out to about 24 million people. That’s seven percent of the U.S. population. So maybe that burns the GOP politically. Maybe it doesn’t.

A major reckoning looms for the Democrats, too.

It’s possible that a coalition of Democratic senators may break with the Democratic Party and support a new GOP plan to re-open the government on a temporary basis. Nowhere is it written that Democrats — who made the shutdown about health care — are guaranteed an outcome on Obamacare subsidies. Yes, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., have said they’ll address the health care issue after the government is open. But that’s not necessarily a fix.

So Democrats are fuming.

Therefore, it’s a distinct possibility that Democrats will refuse to fund the government in an effort to extract a concession on Obamacare subsidies — and walk away empty-handed.

Such an outcome will spark an internecine firestorm inside the Democratic Party. Progressives felt that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., rolled them back in March when he and a squadron of other Democrats helped the GOP crack a filibuster to avoid a shutdown.

It’s doubtful that Schumer will help this time. But Senate Republicans hope to coax just enough Democrats to overcome the filibuster on a pending test vote and then fund the government through late January.

That’s the reckoning for the Democrats. 

No outcome on health care. And getting the screws put to them by members of their own party.

Again.

Progressives will be apoplectic. And House Democrats will seethe — not so privately — at Senate Democrats.

The Senate’s test vote on the new GOP proposal could come as early as Sunday evening. The revised package would also fund the Department of Agriculture and Department of Veterans Affairs, plus, Congress until Sept. 30, 2026.

Fox is told Republicans believe they are in range of persuading Democrats who are sweating the shutdown to join them.

Fox is told that air traffic control and flight delays are contributing to the Democrats’ consternation.

That said, it is believed that the Senate GOP leadership is reluctant to force a vote related to the retooled, spending bill without a guarantee it could break a filibuster. The last thing the Senate needs is another failed procedural vote – after repeated failed test votes over the past six weeks.

Let’s game out the timing for a moment:

By the book, if the Senate breaks the filibuster late Sunday, it’s doubtful the chamber can take a final vote on the package until Monday or Tuesday.  But Fox is told there is a distinct possibility that Democrats could yield back time to expedite the process in the interest of quickly re-opening the government. By the same token, angry liberal senators could bleed out the parliamentary clocks and attempt to amend the bill to their liking — presumably with Obamacare provisions.

The Senate must break yet another filibuster to finish the bill. Then it’s on to final passage. That only needs a simple majority. And even if some Democrats voted to hurdle the filibuster, they might not support the underlying plan at the end. However, that’s not a problem if GOP senators provide the necessary votes.

Then it’s on to the House. The House’s disposition is unclear on this legislation. However, it’s hard to believe that most Republicans wouldn’t take this deal. Reps. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash. and Jared Golden, D-Maine, are among moderate Democrats who may be in play to vote yes if the GOP loses a few votes. Golden was the lone House Democrat who voted for the old interim spending bill on Friday, September 19. Golden has since announced his retirement.

Another big question: 

Would the House swear-in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., before or after the vote? Democrats will bray if Johnson fails to swear-in Grijalva before a possible House vote

And, as we say, it’s always about the math.

Swearing-in Grijalva puts the House at 433 members with two vacancies. The breakdown is 219 Republicans to 214 Democrats. That means the GOP can only lose two votes before needing help from the Democrats.

Regardless, the House would not come back until at least the middle of next week if not later. It hinges on how fast the Senate can move, if it has the votes to break a filibuster and what happens to the Obamacare question.

All of this is uncertain after 39 days of the government shutdown.

And the only thing which is certain is the political reckoning for both parties.

The Senate is in for a rare weekend session as the chamber remains in limbo while lawmakers try to find a way out of the government shutdown.

Behind the scenes, appropriators are cooking up a trio of spending bills to attach to the House-passed continuing resolution (CR), along with an extension to the bill that would, if passed, reopen government until December or January.

Whether a vote on the revamped CR and spending package happens Saturday is still up in the air. Senate Democrats, as they’ve done 14 times previously, are likely to block it. It all comes as the upper chamber is scheduled for a week-long recess to coincide with Veterans’ Day.

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., now wants to keep lawmakers in town until the shutdown ends.

When asked if there would be a vote on the plan, Thune said it would be ideal to have the package on the floor, but that ‘we’ve got to have votes to actually pass it.’ Republicans are reticent to putting the CR out again just to see it fail.

‘I’ve been talking all morning with some of the folks that are involved with the meeting, and I think we’re getting close to having it ready,’ Thune said. ‘We just need to get the text out there.’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus, freshly emboldened by sweeping Election Day victories earlier in the week, are sticking by their newly released plan that would extend the expiring Obamacare subsidies by one year, and create a bipartisan working group to negotiate next steps after the government reopens.

But Senate Republicans immediately rejected the idea; Thune called it a ‘non-starter,’ while others in the GOP were angered by the proposal.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., charged that he would appeal to President Donald Trump and his administration to slash funding from ‘pet projects’ in blue states and cities to pay federal workers as the shutdown drags on.

‘The idea that you’ve got a bunch of kamikaze pilots trying to burn this whole place down because they’re emboldened by an election where Democrats won in Democrat areas is totally insane,’ he said.

Senate Democrats were largely unsurprised that Republicans rejected the offer, however.

‘I know many Republicans stormed out of the gate to dismiss this offer, but that’s a terrible mistake,’ Schumer said.

Thune and his conference have, throughout the course of the 39-day shutdown, said that they would only deal with the subsidies after the government reopened, and have offered Schumer and Senate Democrats a vote on a bill addressing the healthcare issue once the closure ends.

‘I’m not surprised,’ Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said. ‘They don’t want to help people with their health care.’

But Republicans countered that a simple extension of the enhanced subsidies, which were modified under former President Joe Biden during the COVID-19 pandemic, would funnel money straight to insurers.

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., has been in talks with Senate Democrats on a path forward, particularly through jump-starting government funding with the impending trio of spending bills.

After Schumer unveiled Democrats’ plan, she charged that ‘since Obamacare came into effect, look, who’s gotten rich? It’s not the people.’

‘They’re talking about the people’s premiums and have … they taken it to the companies that are actually making the money off of it? They’re not,’ Britt said. ‘So I look forward to hearing why in the world they want to continue these profits and not actually help the people they serve.’

Senate Democrats, however, contend that their offer was fair.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., argued that there were some in the caucus that wanted to do a multi-year extension, while others wanted to go beyond just the enhanced subsidies. He reiterated his frustration that the core of the issue, from his perspective, was that neither Schumer nor Thune would sit down and negotiate.

‘We made a really simple, really scaled-down offer that could get the government up and operating and [is] really good for them politically,’ he said. ‘I just still don’t understand why they won’t accept the offer.’

President Donald Trump has urged Senate Republicans to abolish Obamacare and reroute federal health care spending directly to individual Americans.

In a Truth Social post Saturday morning, Trump wrote: ‘I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over.’

‘In other words, take from the BIG, BAD Insurance Companies, give it to the people, and terminate, per Dollar spent, the worst Healthcare anywhere in the World, ObamaCare.’

‘Unrelated, we must still terminate the Filibuster!’

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Rep. Thomas Massie — a Republican fiscal hawk facing a President Donald Trump-backed primary challenger in Kentucky — has previously described himself as ‘America First,’ but now he says he thinks that he’s ‘America only.’ 

‘I am tired of sending money overseas,’ he told Fox News Digital during an interview on Thursday. 

‘I am tired of favoring foreign beef over U.S.A.-grown beef,’ he continued. ‘I’m ready to be America only. And I think all congressmen should be that way.’

Massie gave Trump a mixed review, saying that the president is America First on ‘some’ fronts.

‘But when it comes to the beef, he is not America first. When it comes to sending money overseas to Ukraine and Israel,’ Massie said, ‘I think he needs to get back to his campaign promises and put America first. Because we’re not gonna make America great again by sending our money overseas.’

Massie noted that his ‘biggest disagreement’ with both the Trump administration and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is the increase in spending.

‘I mean, I thought we were conservatives. Why are we spending more this year than Joe Biden spent in his last year? Actually, we’re spending about $200 billion dollars more,’ he said, adding that the consequence ‘is inflation and higher interest rates.’

‘And people are feeling that. You can’t gaslight them,’ Massie added. ‘You can’t tell them that things are getting cheaper when they’re not getting cheaper.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital, White House spokesman Kush Desai accused Massie of ‘Fake Math.’ 

‘Here are the facts: President Trump’s Working Families Tax Cut Act cut mandatory spending by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, and the budget deficit from April to September of this year is down a staggering 40% compared to last year, when Joe Biden was president,’ Desai declared in the statement.

‘Instead of Fake Math, Thomas Massie should reflect on how he betrayed his voters and hardworking Americans when he voted with every Democrat against the biggest tax cut for working families in American history, including no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime pay, increased child tax credits, and permanence for the 2017 Trump Tax Cuts,’ he added.

Massie said his other disagreements with what has been happening in D.C. are ‘secondary’ to the spending issue.

‘I would say, we need to follow through on some of our campaign promises. For instance, release the Epstein files,’ he said.

Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., have been spearheading a bid to force a House vote on a proposal that would compel the release of materials pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein. 

Their discharge petition has amassed 217 of the 218 signatures needed to force the vote, but Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who has said she will sign on, has still not yet been sworn in to office more than six weeks after winning a special election in Arizona.

Johnson ‘has tried every which way he can to avoid this vote,’ Massie claimed, asserting that the speaker has not sworn in the Democrat because she ‘represents the 218th signature I need to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Johnson’s office for comment.

Massie, who owns cattle himself, said the president has ‘sort of gut punched the cattle ranchers and… livestock farmers’ in the U.S.

During remarks aboard Air Force One last month, Trump indicated the U.S. was considering buying beef from Argentina to drive down prices. 

Days later Reuters reported that a White House official indicated that the administration was quadrupling the nation’s low-tariff imports of beef from the South American nation. Increasing the tariff rate quota to 80,000 metric tons will allow Argentina to send greater quantities of the product to America at a lower rate of duty, according to the outlet.

The president has Massie in his political crosshairs — he has repeatedly reviled the congressman on Truth Social.

In a post on Monday, Trump referred to Massie as ‘a Weak and Pathetic RINO’ — a pejorative acronymn that stands for ‘Republican in name only.’ He also called the congressman ‘a totally ineffective LOSER,’ while expressing his support for primary challenger Ed Gallrein, who Trump is backing in the race.

Even as the president tries to convince voters in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District to reject Massie, the lawmaker said that he does not regret endorsing Trump ahead of the 2024 election, noting that former Vice President Kamala Harris would have been a total ‘disaster.’

Massie initially backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP presidential primary, but DeSantis dropped out and backed Trump, and Massie later endorsed the Republican juggernaut as well.

‘And I’m glad that President Trump won,’ he said. 

Trump has ‘done a lot of good things,’ he said, adding that many of them have been carried out via executive order, and he thinks Congress should vote on more of the issues so that the president’s moves are not simply ‘temporary actions.’

Asked whether he’d have any interest in potentially running for president himself, Massie said that he is not interested.

New York Democrats embraced socialism when they elected Zohran Mamdani to lead the nation’s largest city, but the verdict is still out on whether New York City’s shift to the left is an outlier or the beginning of a broader political realignment.

From California’s redistricting success to gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, Democrats dominated the most closely watched contests of 2025 – results that could be considered a referendum on President Donald Trump’s sweeping, second-term agenda.

As Mamdani rises to political fame, a slate of fellow progressives are vying to ensure that his victory signals the beginning of a new era in progressive politics.

Aftyn Behn

Aftyn Behn, a former healthcare community organizer and current Democrat state representative, recently secured the Democratic nomination to represent Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District.

The Dickson County Democratic Party described Behn as ‘our very own AOC of TN,’ referring to ‘Squad’ member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., according to The Tennessee Star.

On her campaign website, Behn describes herself as a ‘pissed-off social worker’ who was inspired to run for the House of Representatives after Congress passed Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act earlier this year.

Behn is running in Tennessee’s special election on Dec. 2 to replace Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., who retired from Congress earlier this year.

Kat Abughazaleh

Kat Abughazaleh, 26, is the progressive Gen Z candidate running for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District next year.

She was indicted on federal charges in October after protesters allegedly attacked an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicle outside a Chicago suburb facility in September.

Viral videos of Abughazaleh obstructing the ICE vehicle and being shoved the ground by an agent outside the Broadview ICE facility on Sept. 19 became flash points in the divisive debate over Trump’s deportation rollout.

Abughazaleh is a former journalist and activist who frequents protests outside the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois.

She has accused Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of perpetrating ‘crimes against humanity.’

Abughazaleh garnered national attention earlier this year for questioning why it’s controversial that illegal immigrants should have access to taxpayer-funded healthcare.

‘I don’t have health insurance, and I’m running for Congress,’ the young progressive’s campaign website reads.

Saikat Chakrabarti

Saikat Chakrabarti arrived on the political scene during the rise of the ‘Squad,’ running Ocasio-Cortez’s successful 2018 congressional campaign and then serving as her chief of staff.

The progressive met Ocasio-Cortez when he launched ‘Justice Democrats,’ a political action committee committed to recruiting a new generation of leaders.

Now, Chakrabarti has become the generational candidate himself. Earlier this year, he announced his campaign to challenge House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi for her congressional district in San Francisco.

On Thursday, Pelosi announced her intention to retire from Congress at the end of next year, teeing up an already competitive Democratic primary expected with state Sen. Scott Wiener also in the race to replace Pelosi. 

Chakrabarti said it was time for ‘totally new leadership’ in Washington, D.C.

His policy platform includes a long list of progressive promises, including Medicare for All, a wealth tax on the ultra-rich, millions of units of housing, a ban on congressional stock trading and an end to military funding to Israel.

During a phone interview, Chakrabarti told Fox News Digital that his main focus is fixing the ‘underlying economic anxieties that most Americans are facing’ — the same ‘plan for bold, sweeping economic change’ that landed Trump back in the White House last year and was successful for Mamdani this year. 

Chakrabarti’s said a new generation of candidates, like himself, have been inspired to run since witnessing ‘the complete failure of the Democratic political establishment.’

‘I think the people are feeling that the Democratic Party, the establishment, is just sort of weak and slow moving and unable to face the moment,’ he added.

Chakrabarti’s first campaign commitment, according to his website, is to stop Trump’s ‘authoritarian coup.’

The congressional candidate described Trump’s ICE-led deportation rollout as ‘a flagrant violation of our constitutional rights and the freedom of speech and everything we hold dear in this country.’

When asked if the party is moving to the left in response to Trump’s second term, he said, ‘It’s not really a left versus right thing.’

‘I think people are looking for real solutions to the problems. People are looking for a change to the system, and I don’t think Donald Trump is doing it, but that’s what Donald Trump articulated in his campaign.’

Overall, Chakrabarti said voters are ‘very sick and tired of corruption’ and the ‘old guard’ that he described as only looking out for themselves, rather than their constituents.

Chakrabarti congratulated Mamdani’s win in a social media post on Tuesday, telling his followers that Mamdani won because he stood for ‘real, bold change.’

‘That’s what we’re doing here in San Francisco,’ Chakrabarti said, comparing his own campaign to Mamdani’s.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is one of several progressive candidates vying for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat next year.

‘Abdul literally wrote the book on Medicare for All,’ according to his campaign website. He wrote ‘Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide,’ explaining how the U.S. healthcare system can provide affordable care to all Americans.

El-Sayed led Detroit’s Health Department after its bankruptcy and restructured Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human & Veterans Services. In 2020, he helped President Joe Biden craft policies to help lower prescription drug prices.

He believes in abolishing medical debt and that students deserve debt-free and tuition-free two-year apprenticeship programs or a four-year college education.

Abdul El-Sayed celebrated Mamdani’s success on social media this week, when he wrote, ‘Yesterday, voters reminded us how big America can be.’

Graham Platner

Graham Platner is challenging Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in 2026. He is a Marine and a U.S. Army veteran and an oyster farmer.

On Nov. 4, he said he would not be mourning the death of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

‘As a veteran of the Iraq war, I am going to say: No, not this time.’

Between 2020 and 2021, Platner posted and has since deleted Reddit posts calling himself a ‘communist,’ which he recently said he was ‘joking’ about.

Platner has faced calls for him to drop out of the Senate race, and a top campaign staffer resigned after he faced backlash for photos revealing that he had a tattoo resembling the Totenkopf used by Hitler’s SS paramilitary forces.

According to his website, among his campaign promises, Platner supports Medicare for All and ‘a clear-eyed condemnation of the Gaza genocide.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Behn, Abughazaleh and Platner for comment but did not immediately receive a response. 

Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.

The Trump administration on Friday intensified its dispute with South Africa, saying no U.S. government official will attend the G20 Summit in Johannesburg in protest of what it describes as state-backed discrimination against White Afrikaners.

‘The lives and property of Afrikaners have been endangered by politicians who incite race-based violence against them, threaten to confiscate their farms without compensation, and prop up a corrupt race-based scoring system that discriminates against Afrikaners in employment,’ State Department Deputy Principal spokesperson Tommy Piggott told Fox News Digital.

‘South Africa must immediately end all government-sponsored discrimination against Afrikaners and condemn those who seek to ignite racial violence against them.’

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that it’s a ‘total disgrace’ the G20, scheduled for Nov. 22 to Nov. 23, will be held in South Africa.

‘Afrikaners (People who are descended from Dutch settlers, and also French and German immigrants) are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated,’ the president said. ‘No U.S. Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue. I look forward to hosting the 2026 G20 in Miami, Florida!’

Afrikaners have faced increasing hostility from some politicians who have called for violence against them and the threat of land confiscation.

South Africa’s Expropriation Act of 2024 allows the government to take land for public use, including in some cases without compensation — a policy the government says is aimed at addressing racial inequities in ownership, but one that critics warn could unfairly affect White Afrikaner farmers.

Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House in May, pressing him on ‘White genocide’ in the country. Ramaphosa vehemently denied the claims. 

‘There is just no genocide in South Africa,’ he said. ‘We cannot equate what is alleged to be genocide to what we went through in the struggle because people were killed because of the oppression that was taking place in our country. So you cannot equate that.’

Trump played a video in the Oval Office of white crosses along a highway that he said depicted burial sites of White farmers.

‘Have they told you where that is, Mr. President?’ Ramaphosa asked. ‘I’d like to know where that is because this I’ve never seen.’

A senior State Department official told Fox News Digital that the Trump administration set a refugee cap for fiscal year 2026 of 7,500, with a majority of the spots reserved for Afrikaners fleeing what it describes as government-sponsored race-based discrimination in South Africa.